Halfway There
by passing.strange
Summary: "Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are." Dramione, now a drabble series. R&R!
1. Halfway There

_A/N: Hey guys! This story is completely random, and entirely based off of this quote from _**"The Catcher in the Rye" **_by J.D. Salinger:_

_**"Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can."**_

_If you guys like it it may progress into more than a one-shot, but I'll never know if you don't review!_

When Hermione Granger first stepped abord the Hogwarts Express, Harry and Ron's compartment was not the one she visited first.

The train had been crowded beyond belief, and as a sad muggle girl with no idea where she was or what she was doing, it would have been a complete and total understatement to say that she felt alone. As a matter of fact, she felt like she was standing in the middle of a giant black abyss, with nothing and no one around her for lightyears. That wasn't true, of course, seeing as how there were thousands upon thousands of bodies packed into platform 9 and 3/4, but it was certainly how she felt. It seemed like everyone knew at least one other person, except for her. The only person she recognized was a single boy, and that was because she had noticed him on Diagon Alley the other day, and really, she couldn't help but stare.

He was beautiful. She knew you weren't supposed to think of boys as beautiful, but he was. His hair was a shiny-white blonde, and he had incredibly angular features that seemed comletely out of place on an eleven-year-old boy's face, but somehow seemed to work flawlessly. If she had to describe his appearance she would say he reminded her of an angel, except for the fact that he was dressed clad in black from head to toe, and had a look on his face of someone who had smelled something incredibly disgusting. There were rare moments, however, when his parents weren't by his side, that the expression would slip and he would look like a child, filled with wonder and joy, and _those _were the moments where she allowed herself to think of him as beautiful.

So when she saw him heading by himself onto the train, Hermione decided to follow him.

It wasn't like she was a stalker or anything, of course. She was just a simple young girl with a puppy-love crush on a beautiful young boy who she had seen walking down the street, and being the confident person she was, she was going to sit with him. Most kids her age were terrified by the opposite sex, with all that nonsense about cooties and everything, but not Hermione. Reading novels like _Pride and Prejudice _had completely turned her off of the idea of boys being "gross" and "icky", and her scientific mind knew that cooties were entirely made-up. So no, she wasn't afraid or ashamed or embarrassed to go talk to the boy - if anything, she was excited. What if he was her soulmate? Perhaps they could have a tragic love story like Romeo and Juliet, minus the tragic part because no way was Hermione dumb enough to kill herself over a boy. She knew she was getting ahead of herself, but she had always been an imaginative child, and the idea of meeting the love of her life was enough to get her mind reeling with millions of possible scenerios. They could get married in Hawaii, she had always wanted to go there, and then they would have four kids, two boys and two girls, each named after Greek gods and goddesses, and...

A flash of blonde from inside one of the train compartments caught her eye, completely cutting off her train of thought. He was sitting in a compartment, _alone, _and all she could think was that this was her chance to fall in love. There was no turning back, it was time for the leap of faith.

With that thought in mind, she entered his compartment.

Draco Malfoy had never believed in love.

Why would he? There was no evidence of it in his own home, no matter how much his parents liked to pretend. He knew for a fact that his father and mother had loved each other at one point in the past, years of stress from their "secret clubs" had turned their marriage from one of love to one of bitterness and hatred. Yes, his mother loved him, and he was sure his father loved him too, but there wasn't much chance for them to show it, especially not in pubic. He was barely even allowed to _talk _in public, except for when he was wanted to make a rude comment about a muggleborn or introduce himself to one of his father's wealthy "associates". By age eleven he was already being moulded into a miniature version of his father, and he would be lying if he said he enjoyed it.

Not that he didn't idolize his father, because he did. Hell, he wanted to be like him when he was older more than anything in the world. But he wasn't even a teenager yet, which he figured meant that he had plenty of time to just relax and be a child every once in a while. Even Crabbe and Goyle got to goof off with each other occaisionally, but whenever Draco wanted to join his father would cooly insist that "real men do not play" and his mother would give him a stern look that implied that no arguing was allowed.

Eleven years old and he was already half way to being an adult.

So when the girl walked into his compartment, the first thing that popped into his mind wasn't that she was beautiful, or that her eyes were the prettiest things he had ever seen. Not once did he think that maybe, just _maybe, _she could be the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Because hell, he was eleven-years-old, and what kind of eleven-year-old would think something crazy like that? No, the first thing he thought when he saw the bushy-haired girl was how many different creatures must have been living in her mane, because he swore at one point in the first three seconds she had walked into the compartment he had heard a growl come out of it. He scooted a little closer to the window, mainly out of fear that some kind of unidentified species was going to jump out of it and start ripping his face to shreads.

The second thing he thought was that she wasn't that remarkable looking. Maybe it was shallow, but he had been raised to judge people by their looks, and this girl certainly wasn't the best looking thing around. She looked like one of those girls who would grow up to be a librarian, living alone in a single-room apartment with fifty cats urinating in every corner while she read romance novels and ate takeout on a Friday night. Once agian, not one of the nicest thoughts he had ever had, but Draco was an honest boy, and that was _honestly _the vibe she was giving off.

Thought number three: she talked _a lot_. He only realized this when he realized that the entire time he had been planning out her future in his mind, she had been rambling on about there not being enough seats on the train and that this was the first empty compartment she had seen, and she figured she should sit down and was that his natural hair colour? All of this had been said with one breath in three seconds, and he had half of a mind to turn the girl away simply because she just didn't know how to _shut the hell up. _But then, before he even knew what he was doing, he was telling her that he would love for her to sit down and she was joining him in his compartment, rambling on about how they should really make the hallways in the train bigger and spewing off fact after fact about Hogwarts and the Hogwarts Express, as if he actually cared.

So, he did the only thing that there was to do in his situation, and tuned her out.

And the best way to tune a girl out, he found, was to scrutinize her looks. Draco was _very _good at scrutinizing and judging people's appearance, and this girl - whose name he had gathered to be Hermione, from the story she was currently telling about the origin of her name - was certainly strange enough that it would take her at least an hour to fully take every inch of her in. Hopefully that would be long enough so that by the time he was done she would have run out of things to say. But, based on the speed she was talking right now, that wasn't too likely.

First things first were her eyes. They were big and brown, classic girly, puppy eyes. His mother always warned him about girls with big brown eyes, because she said they could steal a boy's heart before he could blink twice. Of course, he had always disagreed, claiming that brown eyes reminded him of feces, but on this girl they reminded him more of melted honey swirled with chocolate. When she got excited about something, which she was currently doing as she spoke about the oppression of house elves, they tended to squint a little, her right one just a fraction more than her left. On any other girl it would have been strange, but on Hermione he found it...well, _cute_. Merlin, he was eleven, he wasn't supposed to even talk to girls, let alone think they were cute.

Which was why he moved onto the second thing: her nose. It was a tiny little thing, perfectly petite and upturned and exactly the way a nose should look like. Pansy Parkinson had an upturned nose, but hers made her look like a pug and Draco swore if you looked hard enough you could see all the way up into her brain. Hermione's nose was at the perfect angle, and every couple of seconds she would scrunch it in a way that made his heart flutter. Which was _wrong _on so many levels. He was about to move onto her lips when he noticed the adorable way her big front teeth were digging into them in a pretty little way that reminded him of innocence and sunshine and flowers and everything good in the world. What the hell was wrong with him?

It was then that the boy, only eleven years old, realized he was half way in love.

And it was right then that he learned the most important lesson he would ever learn about girls.

Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.

So when she stood up from the compartment, rattling off some excuse about how she didn't like the angle the sunlight was coming through the window and how she hoped to see him again sometime, Draco decided right then and there that he would never allow himself to become vulnerable to this girl ever again. He was going to make her life hell, make her hate him more than anything else in the world, and he was going to do it because he loved her.


	2. Demanding Nothing, Expecting Nothing

_Hey guys! I've decided to turn this into a drabble series, since the reviews for the last chapter were so positive! This is a one-shot from seventh year post-war, which may have a two-shot to follow if you guys like it. It's based off of this quote from the Puckleberry Drabble Meme on LiveJournal:_

**"What would happen if I drew up the courage to tell him that I love him? What would happen if I simply walked up to him and said, "I love you." Demanding nothing, expecting nothing. Doesn't he perhaps have the right to know? Isn't love too special, too rare, to be closed up?"**

_**I'm pretty happy with it, but remember to read and review, especially if you want me to continue on with this one!**_

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"Well, Granger, you've done it. You've finally gone mad."

Hermione couldn't help but raise her eyebrow at the firey red head in front of her, because seriously, _when_ did Ginny ever call her 'Granger'? And the way she was storming around the room and throwing her hands in the air was hilarious and completely unnecissicary because what she had said wasn't even that big of a deal, and really didn't deserve that big of a reaction. Yeah, maybe it was a big thing for her to admit, and maybe it would completely change the way every single person in the entire castle looked at her, but what had to be done had to be done, and that was that.

But really, she thought that Ginny's reaction was just a _bit_ over-the-top.

"Come on Gin, it's really not that big of a deal if you think about it," she tried to reason, silently praying for her ginger friend to understand where she was coming from. "I mean, people fall in love all the time! And come on, you can't say you didn't see it coming!" At the red-head's raised eyebrow, she realized that _no_, she really hadn't seen it coming at all, and begain falling over her words to save herself. "We bicker all the time. You know that the line between hate and love is very thin, and I guess I was just fighting him...well, because I love him." As she said the words, a dream expression came over her face, her voice coming out a sweet whisper. "I love him. Hermione Granger is in love."

It took excessively loud gagging noises from across her to make her snap out of her daydream, the loud _shush_ slipping past her lips much more in character than her previous love-struck rambles. After all, they were in a library, and no matter how abusurd the situation was you couldn't just gag as loudly as you wanted. That was completely disrespectful, and Madame Prince would have both their heads if she caught them.

See, love hadn't changed her _too _much!

She watched in half-amusement, half-fear as Ginny paced back and forth in front of her, thanking Merlin she had picked a table in the farthest back corner of the library to break the news. At first it had just been because she didn't want to risk anyone else overhearing, but now she was just concerned about the safety of the people around them. The firey girl looked like she wanted to tear someone apart limb by limb, muttering random strings of nonsense and swears under her breath, and Hermione was positive that if they had been near by anyone else there would have been some poor innocent bystanders spending the next couple of nights in the Hospital Wing after one of her friend's epic Bat Bogey Hexes. So she just remained silent and let her friend fume in peace, figuring it was better to simply sit back and let her get all of her anger out while she figured something else to say that would actually help her case instead of put her in a worse position than she started off in.

"You're not just mad, Hermione, you're _mental_! Honestly, you need to be locked up or something because right now you're making less sense than Ronald did after he broke into Dad's firewhisky stash, and he didn't even know the difference between the carpet and the loo that night, which was _disgusting_ but completely not the point.." She continued to rabmle on about the million different ways the other Gryffindor had lost her mind, and Hermione was certain that if she didn't do something soon she would be sitting there forever. So, she did the only thing she could think of doing. She stood up, grabbed her friend by the hair, pulled her so their faces were inches apart, and growled the five words she knew would shock her into silence:

"I'm going to tell him."

She barely caught Ginny in time before she hit the ground.

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"What are you thinking? You can't tell him!" the girl hissed, holding an ice pack to her head as she sat on a creaky metal bed in the hospital room, shooting Hermione a death glare. Her little fainting stint in the library had resulted in her being holed up in the wing for hours, and needless to say Ginny was _less _that happy. "He'll tear you to shreads, and you know that." She shook her head softly as she adjusted the icepack, and Hermione couldn't help but feel a hot rush of anger at her words. Yes, she understood where her friend was coming from, but for the love of Merlin, why wouldn't she just let her speak!

"I have to tell him, Ginn. You don't understand." It was all she could think to say at the moment, because really, she didn't exactly know why she had to tell Draco Malfoy she was in love with him, because she didn't even know _why_ she was in love with him. He was a prat and an arse with an ego that could fill up the entire Great Hall, but god help her, she loved him, and she wouldn't be able to think straight until she got it off her chest.

Groaning, her friend sat up straighter and emerald green eyes met chocolate brown ones, searching for an answer that Hermione wasn't sure she could give. "So make me understand, Mione! I'm trying to be dimplomatic here and do the right thing as your friend, so please, make me understand why you love Malfoy, and at least _attempt_ to make me understand why you feel this absurd need to tell him you love him."

Sighing, she ran a shaky had through her brown curls and gave Gin a look, knowing she wasn't going to back down easy from this one. Even the brunette had to admit the other girl was being reasonable now, and she figured she would have to figure out the whole "why" of the situation sooner or later. Why _did _she love him? Why _did _she have to tell him she loved him? Life would be so much better if she just kept her mouth shut and didn't say a word to anyone, but the thought of that was enough to make her feel physically ill to her stomach, but now she just had to figure out why that was.

For the love of Merlin, why!

"Why I love him..." she began, searching for words as she went along. It wasn't often that Hermione didn't know what to say, and she was positive that this moment was one that would go down in the history books forever. "I love him because of his smile, I suppose. _Wait,_" she stopped Ginny in her tracks as she began to make some snarky comment about how you couldn't love someone for their smile, making sure that she wasn't going to speak before she continued on once more. "Let me finish. I love him for the person he is when he smiles, the person he allows himself to become. Not smirking or grinning or anything like that, but really smiling. I love him for the person who isn't confined by rules of society or social orders, who isn't constantly longing for a father and mother in prison and a childhood he never fully recieved. When he smiles I see that person, the one who is happy and free and perfect, and whenever I see him smile all I can think is that I want to be the one who brought that smile to his face.

"And why I have to tell him..." This one was a lot harder, and she found herself chewing her lip in confusion as she struggled for words. "I suppose...well, I suppose I want to tell him simply for the 'What if?' part of it all. I'm not expecting anything, I'm not getting my hopes up, I just want to know what would happen. What would happen if I drew up the courage to tell him that I love him? What would happen if I simply walked up to him and said, "I love you." Demanding nothing, expecting nothing. Doesn't he perhaps have the right to know? Isn't love too special, too rare, to be closed up?" Taking a short, quick breath, she looked her friend in the eye and continued speaking, confidence growing with each word. She knew she was right, she _knew _it, she just had to make Ginny see it too. "I'm not fooling myself into thinking that this is a match made in heaven, Gin. I'm not going to go into this and expect him to throw himself into my arms and tell me he's loved me all along. I'm going to this prepared to be humiliated and destroyed and torn to shreds, and you know what? I don't care. Because I love him, and that's it."

Ginny stared at her in shock, mouth hanging open as she recovered from the massive amount of words that had just been tossed in her face. She truely looked at a loss, and Hermione would have felt bad for her if it hadn't been her fault that the whole speech had happened in the first place. Really, she had said she wanted it, and the brunette had simply spoken from the heart. Simple as that.

"Okay," she said slowly, and despite her better judgement Hermione felt her breath catch in her throat. "Okay, you should tell him."

And that was exactly what she was going to do.


End file.
